Angry Birds launch speed math may surprise you

As a regular Angry Birds player, the question that comes to my mind repeatedly is “What on Earth is the purpose of the green and white birds?!”. However, Rhett Allain of Wired.com has completely different things on his mind. Instead of pondering on something along this line, he has decided to find out whether the launch speed of the birds in the game is constant or on the contrary, it depends on the angle you shoot the bird. You see, in real life, the bird would fly faster if you shoot it straight on rather than up in the sky.

And so he set out to find the answer, with graphs and calculations and other horrifying stuff they use to torture kids in school. Joke aside, what follows is a fairly detailed analysis of whether or not the launch speed is constant and whether it depends upon the angle at which you launch the birds. There are enough graphs and numbers and Greek letters in there to make math geeks giddy with excitement. Me? I’m off to actually playing the game. And maybe some day I’ll find the purpose of those two birds.

Spoiler: The game doesn’t include real-life adjustments, birds fly off at the same speed no matter what direction you shoot in.